Mark Vi Helmet Build

[theateam2006]

So, this helmet build has been a project that has been over a year in the making. I originally planned on making a full suit, but realized that I am too slow to accomplish that. I am a college student and put my studies before my helmet, so I did not work on it for quite some time. I also got to the bondo stage and became completely discouraged, because I felt like I was getting nowhere. However, the summer is here, and I decided I would finish making the helmet before I head off the the University of Alabama's Law School.



Anyways, here's some pictures of my low-res helmet build. I know it's pretty crappy, but it was my first time ever attempting Pep and it was more of a practice run for the real thing anyway. I found that having a nice workstation with a laptop to reference while making the helmet makes the project much easier. I'm at work at the moment, but I'll upload some pictures of the high res model when I get back to my place.



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I would also like to add some words of advice to people that may not have tried anything like this before. Start out small with a hand plate or something like that. You will gain experience and learn whether or not you even enjoy doing this type of work. That way, you won't go out and spend a bunch of money on materials if you find out that costume building is not for you. Also, by the time you've finished some smaller pieces, you will have honed your skills and will do a much better job on the helmet (which is probably the most important piece of your suit imo). I have never enjoyed art, and my first attempt at costume building was a helmet. However, it is a great experience, and very humbling too. If you haven't done much research into the whole topic, go check out Thor's build in the elite forums. His work inspired me to build a helmet, and he does an amazing job that I only wish I could replicate.

 

[pyrometheous]

came out great, do you plan on painting it and getting a visor now that you have a few months before august? I hope one day you find some free time during a semester so you get a chance to do the rest. I was in the same boat as you for a while (kind of still am), but now I'm making time to do both(I know its an insane idea and i don't get much sleep anymore...). Keep it up

 

[Sentry Sniper]

Great helmet! I'm thinking on doing a Mark VI Helmet as well, for a start. I already have the "mats" and I'm going to start early tommorow. I hope my first "Pepakura" helmet turns out looking the good. Great work. Hope you get time to finish it.

 

[theateam2006]

Well, I actually plan on molding the hi-res version (which I'll be posting pictures of in about 2 and a half hours), because eventually the bondo will crack. I already have a gold motorcycle helmet, computer fans, 9 volt batteries, and some 9 volt battery cases. I'm going to be buying some LED's once I actually get the helmet ready for molding so that I can begin wiring it. I also bought some paint, so I'll be going traditional with the paint job.

 

[Zero1o1]

Great build so far,

What glue you use?!



And good luck to finish the helmet.

 

[theateam2006]

I used Loctite super glue. It dries super fast, so you need to be careful when putting your pieces together. The upside is that it sets pretty fast, so your work will go by faster. I've read that other people use hot glue, so it's really your pick. You can pick up the Loctite at any hardware store such as Lowes or Home Depot. Use the super glue sparingly too, because a little goes a long way. Just play around with it and find what works best for you.

 

[DylanMarx]

Looking nice.

 

[kenster1000]

Extreamly good work on the helmet. Good job. Keep it up.

 

[Varsity]

Is this a hd version also the top looks a little warped

 

[theateam2006]

Alright, this is not the HD version. I just uploaded the pics of the HD version to my gallery, along with some of the bondo work that I'm doing. I can't upload any pictures to the post anymore because it says I have exceeded my max global upload quota of 4.82 MB, and I don't know how to clear that cache out. So if any of you know how so I can continue posting the pics in here, you'd be my hero (right behind thor, b/c he's awesome).



So, as you can see in my gallery photos, my visor is crooked, and I have made efforts to correct that as I fiberglass resined the helmet to seal it. Then, as you will see in other pictures, I hardened the helmet by using Smoothcast 320 from Smoothon Inc. I also tried to correct that problem during the Smoothcast stage.



Now as you will see in some of the bondo photos, I have some pits in the bondo, along with a few other problems. I'm thinking those are air bubbles that just need to be filled in as I go.



I'm also using blue painters tape around the edges, and that is pretty much something I haven't seen anyone do yet, so I thought I'd explain why. When I first started the project, I had never used bondo and made some bad mistakes. I covered up areas that made it impossible to distinguish the detailed lines on the helmet. So, just as you use tape to stop paint from getting on a surface, I put tape on the areas I didn't want the bondo to touch. This really worked like a charm too, b/c as you can see in image 0853, i have a pretty nice, smooth line (still needs a little work, but it's amazing imo compared to what I did before). The tape actually holds up really well to a dremel tool, so you can grind away at any bondo overlapping the tape to help you better distinguish where you finally need to sand. I hope this tip helps some of you out, b/c it really made a difference to me and has encouraged me to keep going.



Another thing I would like to point out is that I am going to try a technique to make the project seem less overwhelming. Basically, I'm focusing on one section of the helmet at a time, and making it perfect, and then moving on from there. That way I can slowly work my way around the helmet until it is ready to mold. I went ahead and applied bondo to several places on the helmet so I wouldn't take up so much time waiting for the bondo to dry (I wait 30 mins to an hour before sanding just to be sure I don't screw it up).



So once again, if anyone knows how to clear the global upload quota of 4.88MB, I'd really appreciate the help.



That's all for now. I need to run some errands before I go out of town for a few days to search for a new place to live. I'm leaving tomorrow and I'll be back Wednesday. I'm thinking about taking the helmet with, and some bondo too in case I have some down time.

 

[theateam2006]

Thanks to rundown, I am now able to put pictures up. He told me to create a photobucket account, and then put links to the images in my topic. So here we go.

So that's what the hi-res model looks like. I decided to continue with the helmet because it took me a very long time to even do that well. Like I said earlier, I'm not very fond of art. Yet, I tolerate it because I really like Halo.



Now, here's some pics of the bondo work. I know there are some pits in several areas, but ignore those b/c I'll fill those with more bondo or spot putty.

Along the top of this image, you can see a pretty flat bondo line. It does need a little filling to make it even, but it's turning out great imo.

As you can see, it's not nearly as crooked and I still have to put bondo along the bottom of the visor, so hopefully it will turn out ok.

These last two pics just show what the inside of the helmet looks like after using the smoothcast 320. I had a little leak out, but a dremel tool fixed that right up.



When I resined the outside of the helmet (check out the 3rd image from the bottom and all the parts without bondo is what the whole helmet looked like), it was basically done to seal the helmet so that I could put smoothcast 320 on the inside. One big thing to remember is to not cut out the paper where the visor would be, or else you will have a difficult time using the smoothcast 320 to solidify your helmet.



Enjoy and know that I will do my best to progress quickly on this.

 

[balistek]

great work man. do you remember roughly how much 320 you used on your helm? Can it with stand a drop to the floor?

 

[theateam2006]

great work man. do you remember roughly how much 320 you used on your helm? Can it with stand a drop to the floor?

It's been quite a while since I poured the 320 so I'm not sure how much of it I used. I can tell you how much I bought, which was 8 lbs of Part A (yellow and 7.4 pounds of Part B. When I shook Part A, the liquid plastic sat right at the top of the label. Add in the fact that I used 320 for both the practice helmet and the high res version (since I would rather screw up the low-res instead of the high-res), I would say I used half or less of the portion above the label for each helmet. I know I don't have an oz figure for you, but I hope that helps. I bought enough to make molds, that's why I have the bigger containers.



Whether ot not it can withstand a drop to the floor is unknown to me, since I haven't dropped it. I would not recommend dropping your helmet while you are in the bondo stage, because I think you could really do some damage to your hard work. If you were planning on molding your helmet, then that's a different story. I say that because you can literally make the thickness of your mold as thick as you want. Right now, I can knock on the helmet, inside or out, and it makes a very loud noise and hurts my knuckles. So, I'd like to say that once you mold it and pour a mold of decent thickness, you should have no problems with it surviving a drop on the floor. It would probably screw up your paint job though.



Did that answer your question?



Just a little update. I got a little bit more sanding done today, but I only had an hour of daylight to work on the helmet b/c I needed to clean the apt.

 

[balistek]

sounds like this product goes a long way. I was just curious about the dropping because I find rondo to be very brittle. I accidentally dropped an older helmet with rondo from bout chest high and it shattered. I think that smoothcast wouldn't be as brittle as rondo. I'd never drop my hard work on purpose, but I figure with it being lighter and possibly less brittle, it'd be worth the extra cost. Also like the fact of less fumes.



Thanks for you explanation of the matter, I think I will go pick some up

 

[Charlieiscool12]

have you tried using smooth cast 300? is there a difference? im trying to decide between 300, 320, and ROTO.

 

[theateam2006]

sounds like this product goes a long way. I was just curious about the dropping because I find rondo to be very brittle. I accidentally dropped an older helmet with rondo from bout chest high and it shattered. I think that smoothcast wouldn't be as brittle as rondo. I'd never drop my hard work on purpose, but I figure with it being lighter and possibly less brittle, it'd be worth the extra cost. Also like the fact of less fumes.



Thanks for you explanation of the matter, I think I will go pick some up

Are you planning on using the 320 on the outside of the helmet? Just curious, b/c when I used it, it was very runny and would be hard to control unless using it inside a mold. If you've got any more questions for me, I'll do my best to answer them.



And to answer your question, charlie, I have not used 300 yet. When I originally looked at them, I didn't really find much of a difference. Here's what I found on smooth-on's website.



The Smooth Cast® 300 Series of liquid plastics are ultra-low viscosity casting resins that yield castings that are bright white and virtually bubble free. Vacuum degassing is not necessary. They offer the convenience of a one to one mix ratio (one part A to one part B by volume). Fully cured castings are tough, durable, machinable and paintable. They resist moisture and mild solvents. Applications for Smooth-Cast® Liquid Plastics include reproducing small to medium size sculptures,making prototype models, roto cast pieces, and special effect props. The price for the 1 gallon unit (which weighs 15.4 lbs total) is $81.76, and the trial size (which weighs 1.9 lbs total) is $24.72.



The Smooth Cast® 320 Series- Easier to Pigment consists of new ultra-low viscosity/low cost casting resins that yield virtually bubble-free castings. Smooth Cast® 320 Series resins pigment better and are lower in cost. Applications for Smooth Cast® 320 Series resins include reproducing small to medium size sculptures, making prototype models, special effect props, decorative jewelry, etc. Easy to mix and pour, these resins offer the convenience of a one to one mix ratio (one Part A to one Part B by volume). Fully cured castings are tough, durable, machinable and paintable. They resist moisture and mild solvents. The 1 gallon unit (which weighs 15.4 lbs total) costs $79 before shipping. Trial size (which weighs 1.9 lbs total) is $25.



So, if you think you are going to be making enough pieces of armor and want to use either one to reinforce your armor, or you think you will be doing a fair amount of castings, I'd recommend you go ahead and buy it in bulk. As for the difference between the two, it seems like they are practically the same except that 320 can be pigmented easier and costs just a little less. I hope that helps.



I'm also out of town at the moment, but I did bring the helmet and will get close to 4 hours to work on it. So, I'm hoping to have a few sections of the helmet fully sanded by the end of the day.

 

[Jeddychan]

lol when I saw "This is part-A" on the smoothcast bottle, I thought for a second that it said "This is spart-A"



Hey, next time you reinforce one of your armor parts, could you measure how much you use? Im kind of interested in smoothcast, since I made my own rotocast machine (gotta fix the darn thing up though) but the smoothcast seems a bit expensive...



Although I think I would love not having all those toxic fumes...

 

[theateam2006]

lol when I saw "This is part-A" on the smoothcast bottle, I thought for a second that it said "This is spart-A"



Hey, next time you reinforce one of your armor parts, could you measure how much you use? Im kind of interested in smoothcast, since I made my own rotocast machine (gotta fix the darn thing up though) but the smoothcast seems a bit expensive...



Although I think I would love not having all those toxic fumes...

When I get back Wednesday, I'm going to reinforce some parts of the helmet that don't have too much plastic, so I'll try and make a video for you. I've also had the plastic for a while, so I need to check it out anyway to see if it's still good for molding. I don't plan on making any more parts because I am pretty slow with the armor making process and I'm starting law school in august. Check back then and hopefully I'll have a video up.



It would have been even better if it was smooth-cast 300 and it said "this is spart-A!!"

 

[Charlieiscool12]

lol

my pieces that i slush cast with smooth cast 321 can be dropped no problem, if that answers your question.